Lib Dem policy – a year is a long time in politics…

By Chris Williamson MP / @chriswmp

It was Harold Wilson who in the 1960s coined the phrase that a week is a long time in politics. How right he was. The events that have unfolded since the general glection would have been unthinkable this time last year.

TV pictures of students taking to the streets and staging sit-ins were only ever seen in archive footage from the 1960s and 70s, but a new political awareness is stirring. Many young people are indignant about the blatant betrayal by the Liberal Democrats.

Every single Lib Dem MP gave a solemn pledge “to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”

It was these pledges that persuaded many students to vote for the Liberal Democrats, securing victory for them in a number of seats around the country. Little wonder then that students feel betrayed and have taken to the streets to voice their anger.

Their sense of indignation is understandable and justified, not just because the Liberal Democrats have let them down, but because the government’s proposals are seriously flawed.

The government’s plans to raise the cap on tuition fees, cut teacher training by 80% and abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance for sixth form students undermines aspiration.

Their proposals represent a radical shift in the way in which we as a society view and support further and higher education. Forcing students to pay the full cost of their tuition and taking away financial support for further education students from poorer backgrounds is, in my view, nothing short of a national scandal.

Some universities will be able to charge the highest tuition fees and still attract students, but others like the University one in my home city of Derby won’t, and will consequently receive less money via student contributions.

But Derby University, like many others, is set to lose tens of millions of pounds in government funding. This will require it to increase tuitions fees to more than £7,000 per annum to cover the reduction, which poses a difficult conundrum. If universities are forced to increase their fees to £7,000 or more, they might not be able to attract a sufficient number of students to meet the shortfall in government funding. But if they don’t they will create a financial black hole.

The government is disinterested in this quandary being faced by universities around the country. Indeed, when I put this dilemma to David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities, in the House of Commons on November 3rd, no reassurances were forthcoming.

It seems the government has opted for a ‘sink or swim’ approach to students and universities alike. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I support the National Union of Students’ call for the introduction of a graduate tax to ensure the bulk of additional resources for higher education would come from the highest earning graduates.

The government says it wants MPs to vote on its controversial plans to increase tuition fees before the end of the year. But if the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs honoured their pre-election pledge, the planned increase would be defeated. I understand some Liberal Democrat MPs are considering abstaining, but that isn’t good enough. To have any chance of defeating the government on this issue they have to vote against these malevolent proposals.

And finally it is worth remembering that the government is not introducing these plans because it has to, it is doing so because it wants to. The government’s policies are nothing short of an ideological assault on state funded education.